William Rees-Mogg: Hillary has the wind at her back

09/12/2005

The Australian
13 September 2005

HAS Katrina made senator Hillary Clinton the next president of the US? No, because her campaign was already rolling ahead in the month before the hurricane. But Katrina and the slow emergency aid response may have been the final blow to Republican prospects for the election of 2008.

First of all, Clinton will have to win the Democratic nomination. Here one can only quote from the jingoist song: “She’s got the ships, she’s got the men, she’s got the money, too.” Hillary has the Clinton organisation behind her, the only powerful presidential machine the Democrats have created since Ted Kennedy folded his tent in 1982. As the Bush family has shown, it takes a presidential machine to win presidential elections. That is why political dynasties become so powerful in the US.

Clinton’s polling figures for the primaries look fine. Before the Katrina disaster, which she and her husband have handled with their usual skill, she had an 81 per cent approval rating among Democrats. By comparison, the leading Republican candidate for the 2008 nomination, John McCain, had only a 56 per cent approval rating in his party.

Hillary is also the star fundraiser for her party, not only for herself but for fellow Democrats. Money can be decisive in the primaries as well as in the presidential campaign. It helps that she is a senator for New York; it helps even more that she has the Clinton machine.

Even in early August the omens were looking good for her. Clinton has always been a strong candidate, a highly professional politician, popular with women and a successful senator. But she has been regarded as too sharp-edged and divisive, and has had personal enemies and critics dating back to the days when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas in the 1980s. His governorship has been investigated and reinvestigated, and it was not too pretty a sight, but that was a long time ago.

Bill Clinton’s presidency included his impeachment, but it had its successes as well; that is more than four years ago. Hillary Clinton has been moving towards the moderate centre of US politics and her critics have been moving towards her. She inevitably suffered as a consequence of Bill Clinton’s reputation and a professional job has been done of detoxifying her husband’s image.

Dick Morris, who was Bill Clinton’s adviser in the successful 1996 re-election campaign, writes in the New York Post: “Bill Clinton’s constant appearances with [former president George H.W. Bush] and his highly visible efforts for the [Asian] tsunami victims are helping [to] rehabilitate his wife’s image.”

The Bush family recognises the Clintons as the only other American dynasty in this century. They use Bill Clinton when bipartisanship helps them and he has used the Bushes to rehabilitate his image, which has also improved that of his wife.

This has to be seen in the context of reports that the Bushes don’t plan to have a family candidate for the next presidential election. They have recognised that it would look too dynastic for Florida Governor Jeb Bush to run as his brother’s successor. Jeb Bush helped to fix the Florida recount in 2000. In effect, the Bush family is almost acquiescing in the return of the Clintons, although the Bushes will support the Republican nominee at the time.

They may be right to accept the reality. Apart from McCain, who is an attractive candidate to independents, the Republicans do not have an obvious candidate for 2008, just as the Democrats do not have a convincing alternative to Hillary Clinton.

Condoleezza Rice is a nice idea rather than a serious contender for the Republicans. After that, most Republican hopefuls have minimal name recognition; they include Senate majority leader Bill Frist, senator George Allen of Virginia and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty. You cannot beat somebody with nobody.

The long-term record is equally depressing for the Republicans. There is a constitutional limit of two terms for the president, but US voters seem to apply that to the parties as well. Since 1952, there have been five occasions on which one party or the other has sought a third term in the White House; four times the incumbent party was defeated. Even before Katrina, the odds were 4-1 on a Democratic victory in 2008. Voters get bored with the same party.

The polls have also shown a steady decline in approval for President George W. Bush’s most contentious policy, the occupation of Iraq. All wars have a shelf life of public support; they become less popular as time goes by. That was true of Vietnam and it is true of Iraq; war fatigue has set in.

The issues in Iraq remain extremely important, whether one considers the stability of the Middle East, democracy in Iraq, world oil supplies or the war on terror. The Americans cannot just get out, but voters do not like body bags.

On Saturday, Bush tried to rally the American people. He appealed to the memory of 9/11, but that did not help him. Americans do indeed regard 9/11 as New York’s finest hour. No American regards the New Orleans disaster, with its first week of indecision, inaction and anarchy, as anyone’s finest hour, least of all the President’s. He failed to take effective federal action in that dreadful first week. His approval ratings have collapsed to the lowest level of his presidency. Inevitably so.

Katrina did not create the trend but it crystallised in people’s minds the perceived weaknesses of this administration; it is seen as uncaring, out of date and out of touch. The President must fight back or the mid-term congressional elections will be a disaster; he will lose his grip on power while he is still in office. Beyond that is the prospect of Hillary Clinton for 2008, perhaps becoming a two-term president. That would take the US through to 2016. The storm warning is Hurricane Hillary.

William Rees-Mogg is a columnist with, and former editor of, Britain’s The Times, from which this is extracted.